Buried truth?

The issue of the incident in Jaffarabad district in Balochistan, where five women were reportedly buried alive, has finally created a national furore. This of course is as things should be. Protests have been staged outside parliament over the remarks made by Senator Israrullah Zehri attempting to defend the gruesome 'honour' killing as 'tribal custom'. Other leaders from Balochistan have denied such practices are a part of tradition.

But, sadly, even as the Senate passed a unanimous resolution condemning the incident and demanding punishment for its perpetrators, an attempt at a cover-up is on. The government presented an extremely dubious report before the Senate, stating three women and not five had been killed, that the incident involved a property dispute and was not a case of 'honour' killing and that the women had been killed before being buried. The adviser on interior, perhaps realizing that all this sounded blatantly unbelievable given mounting evidence of the horrific event that had actually taken place, has conceded that this version based on local police accounts differs from the report by the IG and a full investigation is on. But an obvious attempt seems to be on to bury the truth, alongside the hapless women who met so terrible an end. The interior adviser himself shied away from making any reference to a live burial, focusing instead on 'honour' killings that he emphasized also took place outside Balochistan. While three arrests have been made, including that of the fathers of the girls and the brother of two, and two bodies exhumed, authorities insist the brother of a PPP provincial minister was not involved. They have maintained media reports accusing him of playing a part in the whole sordid incident are inaccurate.

This is a distinct diversion from accounts from NGOs that have investigated the happening. People in Usta Muhammad, the principal town of Jaffarabad, had reported a vehicle with government number plates had been used to whisk away the three teenage girls – and possibly another woman accompanying them – from a hotel. They speak of a 'tribal influential' being involved. It is thought the young women, all of them educated, who had chosen to exercise their lawful right to make their own choice in marriage, had come to the town to enter into court marriages with the men of their choosing. Many details, lost amidst various cover-ups, remain hazy. Police now say two and not five women were killed. Local people, in the village of Babakot where the event took place, are clearly too terrorized to talk. The arrested brother of two of the women killed has reportedly taken responsibility. This seems like a replication of the pattern seen in numerous 'honour' killings, where a brother accepts blame, and is then 'forgiven' by the father of the victim, thus ensuring that under the country's Qisas and Diyat law his son escapes scot-free and no one is punished.

The fact that the Balochistan High Court has taken suo motu notice of the incident is good news. This raises some hope the truth will eventually emerge from amidst the sands in which an attempt is being made to bury it. The central government must ensure it participates fully in the effort to punish all those involved in the crime and join hands with civil society for this. The fact that in the first three months of this year, at least 90 women suffered 'honour' killings according to the Aurat Foundation indicates how grave the problem is. Thousands are believed to have died over the past five years for the sake of family 'honour'. The 2005 law that set in place tougher penalties for such crimes remains poorly enforced. These are the wrongs a government, led till the end of this year by a woman in whose name it still speaks, must right. Attempting a cover-up would only add to the crime itself.

A clean break

It is not often that clear and unequivocal statements come from the mouths of government functionaries; and we therefore warmly welcome the statement by Rehman Malik, adviser to the prime minister on the interior, that Al Qaeda and the Tehreek-e-Taliban Pakistan (TTP) are one and the same. Analysts and commentators as well as western media outlets have been saying much the same for several years, but were told by the previous government that there was no linkage between the two organisations and that it was foolish to think that there was. Rehman Malik in making the statement that there was a nexus between Al Qaeda and the TTP is thus signalling a significant break with the past by acknowledging reality and eschewing the traditional policy of denial. He went on to say that the TTP was… 'a new face of Al Qaeda' – which is again a welcome acknowledgement of ground realities.

The government has now banned the TTP and issued orders to the State Bank of Pakistan that all commercial banks are to freeze TTP accounts as well as provide complete details of account holders and their transactions. Whilst supporting this overdue move we also urge a note of caution as outfits like the TTP are adept at changing shape and name and swiftly re-emerging under the barriers of the banning order as vigorous as they were in their previous incarnation. The TTP should have been banned long ago, its funds sequestered and its activists disarmed, their strongholds bulldozed. Was this to have happened we may have been able to limit, but completely prevent, some of the violence currently wracking NWFP. The government also needs to widen the scope of its actions against extremism and target latent groups, before they achieve the bloody notoriety of the TTP. One such that is in need of having its wings clipped is Jaish-e-Mohammed, headquartered in Bahawalpur in the south Punjab and in recent months flexing its muscles. NGOs working on women rights issues have been threatened, video and CD shops burned or bombed in Kot Addu and women warned to remain housebound. This is the thin end of the wedge, and it is by allowing such organisations latitude in the early days of their activity that they are able to gain power and influence over a highly suggestible population.

Freezing bank accounts and banning organisations is all well and good, but will only be effective if their successor accounts are frozen and successor organisations are banned and then banned again until the curse of extremism is expunged – and not only in NWFP. JM is just one of several organisations 'giving cause for concern' – and we note that south Punjab is geographically distant from NWFP, which gives weight to the argument that extremist organisations are not confined to traditionally 'radical' areas. Full marks for your forthright clarity, Mr Rehman Malik, and can we please have more of the same in the future – closely followed by the appropriate action, of course?

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Regards,
P.R.